One of the strangest things I have heard from atheists is the assertion that Christianity is somehow connected to the fascism, such as the fascism that existed under Adolf Hitler. Two posts by Jewish author Jonah Goldberg from National Review supply us with the facts to set the record straight.

Like the engineers of that proverbial railway bridge, the Nazis worked relentlessly to replace the nuts and bolts of traditional Christianity with a new political religion. The shrewdest way to accomplish this was to co-opt Christianity via the Gleichschaltung while at the same time shrinking traditional religion’s role in civil society.

2) Hitler banned the giving of donations to churches

Hitler banned religious charity, crippling the churches’ role as a counterweight to the state. Clergy were put on government salary, hence subjected to state authority. “The parsons will be made to dig their own graves,” Hitler cackled. “They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes.”

3) Hitler replaced Christian celebrations with celebrations of the state

Following the Jacobin example, the Nazis replaced the traditional Christian calendar. The new year began on January 30 with the Day of the Seizure of Power. Each November the streets of central Munich were dedicated to a Nazi Passion play depicting Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch. The martyrdom of Horst Wessel and his “old fighters” replaced Jesus and the apostles. Plays and official histories were rewritten to glorify pagan Aryans bravely fighting against Christianizing foreign armies. Anticipating some feminist pseudo history, witches became martyrs to the bloodthirsty oppression of Christianity.

4) Hitler favored the complete elimination of Christianity

When some Protestant bishops visited the Fuhrer to register complaints, Hitler’s rage got the better of him. “Christianity will disappear from Germany just as it has done in Russia . . . The Germanrace has existed without Christianity for thousands of years . . . and will continue after Christianity has disappeared . . . We must get used to the teachings of blood and race.”

5) Hitler favored the removal of mandatory prayers in schools

In 1935 mandatory prayer in school was abolished…

6) Hitler favored the banning of Christmas carols and nativity plays

…and in 1938 carols and Nativity plays were banned entirely.

7) Hitler abolished religious instruction for children

By 1941 religious instruction for children fourteen years and up had been abolished altogether….

…Just as the Nazi attack on Christianity was part of a larger war on the idea of universal truth, whole postmodern cosmologies have been created to prove that traditional religious morality is a scam, that there are no fixed truths or “natural” categories, and that all knowledge is socially constructed.

Practically everything this man believed was 100% anti-Christian. But he fits in fine on the secular left.

Conclusion

Adolf Hitler was a man influenced by two big ideas: evolution and socialism. His party was the national SOCIALIST party. He favored a strong role for the state in interfering with the free market. He was in favor of regulating the family so that the state could have a bigger influence on children. And he favored the idea of survival of the fittest. His ideas are 100% incompatible with Christianity and with capitalism as well. Christians value individual rights and freedoms, small government and the autonomy of the family against the state. The differences are clear and significant.

It’s important not to overstate the perils Romney faces. He is still by far the best-funded candidate in the race. He has a state-by-state infrastructure that is the envy of his rivals. Even if he were to lose Saturday’s South Carolina primary, he would likely remain the overall favorite to clinch the nomination.

But the procession of errors has been striking nonetheless — and it has raised concerns among many in the GOP about his vulnerabilities in a general election contest with President Obama.

Most of Romney’s awkwardness has revolved around questions about his wealth. During a heated exchange during a debate last month, he ill-advisedly offered to bet Perry $10,000 that his own account of what he had written in one of his books was correct. Perry declined, saying he was “not in the betting business,” but the episode heightened perceptions that Romney is out of touch with most Americans.

The same pattern keeps cropping up. Earlier this week, he was asked about the effective tax rate he pays on his income, and managed to injure himself twice in the space of a few sentences. First, he acknowledged that his tax rate was “probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything.” He then added: “I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”

The first claim was almost certainly true. Romney’s income is believed to come chiefly from long-term investments rather than earned income, and that would indeed make him liable for capital gains tax levied at a 15 percent rate. But it still places the multimillionaire in a more lightly taxed band than many voters — something which Newt Gingrich tried to take advantage of with his mocking proposal to introduce a “Mitt Romney 15 percent flat tax.”

Perhaps even worse was Romney’s “not very much” comment. His latest financial disclosure form, which covered the period from February 2010 to February 2011, revealed that he earned $374,327 for speeches. The sum is approximately seven times the median household income in the United States.

Those remarks had been preceded by a televised debate at which he gave a muddled response about whether he would release his tax returns.

Romney flubbed the tax-return question for a second time at a debate last Thursday, eliciting boos from the crowd when he said he would “maybe” follow the example of his late father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, who released 12 years of tax returns when running for the presidency in 1968.

Romney’s mangled syntax on these occasions seems symptomatic of a wider personal unease in discussing his finances. GOP consultants say he needs to get over that discomfort if he is to prove an effective candidate.

Like many Americans, Mitt Romney has an individual retirement account. Unlike most Americans, Mr. Romney has between $20.7 million and $101.6 million in it, a big chunk of his fortune.

Experts on estate planning said it is highly unusual to accumulate such a considerable sum in an IRA, an investment vehicle restricted by annual contribution limits. It appears that Mr. Romney’s grew so large mostly because it holds investments in Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he helped start.

[…]Mr. Romney is one of the richest presidential candidates in decades, and his GOP opponents increasingly are trying to turn wealth into a liability. President Barack Obama is expected to do the same if the former Massachusetts governor wraps up the nomination. Mr. Romney’s tax liability has emerged as a debating point in the GOP nominating contest, a proxy for a bigger argument over who should shoulder the nation’s tax burden.

In recent days, Mr. Romney’s rivals have pressed him to release his tax returns. They have attacked him for his role at Bain Capital, the source of his wealth. When Mr. Romney revealed Tuesday that his effective federal income-tax rate had been about 15% in recent years, both the White House and GOP candidates used the number as a cudgel.

[…]Michael Whitty, a lawyer at Vedder Price in Chicago who advises private-equity executives, said it is impossible to determine from Mr. Romney’s public disclosures how the IRA grew so large. Based on its listed holdings, which include many Bain Capital vehicles, Mr. Whitty theorizes Mr. Romney may have invested in Bain funds through a 401(k)-type plan, or directed some of his Bain holdings into such a plan, which he then rolled into an IRA.

How is he going to explain that? This might be one of the reasons why Romney is not releasing his tax returns. He needs to be pounded on this by Gingrich and Santorum until he drops out – we can’t afford to choose a nominee who has no hope of beating Barack Obama.

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said Friday he will sign restrictive abortion legislation, making Indiana the first state to cut off all government funding for Planned Parenthood and boosting Daniels’ credentials among social conservatives as he considers whether to run for president.

Daniels said he supported the abortion restrictions from the outset and that the provision added to defund abortion providers did not change his mind. He said women’s health, family planning and other services will remain available.

“The principle involved commands the support of an overwhelming majority of Hoosiers,” Daniels said in a statement announcing his intention to sign the bill when it arrives on his desk in about a week.

[…]State Rep. Linda Lawson, a Democrat from Hammond who opposes the bill, said the legislation wouldn’t win Daniels any friends among independents and women.

I thought he was only a fiscal conservative. Oh well, I guess this is fiscally conservative.

Days after Republican Congressmen in Washington abandoned the effort to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funds, the battle continues in state legislatures across the country.

In North Carolina, Republicans added a provision to the state budget last week that would prohibit the state from providing grants or entering into contracts with Planned Parenthood, a measure which would deprive the organization of the $473,000 it currently receives through state family planning programs.

Representative Nelson Dollar, chairman of the House appropriation subcommittee for Health and Human Services, told the Raleigh News and Observer newspaper that the provision is unrelated to the issue of abortion.

“There are a whole host of programs being reduced. Planned Parenthood is not unique,” he said, adding that the proposed budget still allocated $3.6 million towards other teen pregnancy prevention programs.

A similar measure prohibiting state grants and contracts with Planned Parenthood was added to a pro-life bill in Indiana yesterday. According to an Associated Press report, Planned Parenthood is currently receiving $3 million in Indiana state funds.

The larger bill of which the funding provision is now a part, HB 1210, would also prohibit abortions after 20 weeks gestation. The current legal cut-off in Indiana is 24 weeks. The bill has yet to be voted on by the state Senate.

Also on Monday, Minnesota Republicans introduced SF 1224, a bill that does not mention Planned Parenthood by name, but which prohibits state grant funds from being given to any organization that provides abortions or refers patients for abortion.

If passed, the bill would remove state funds from all of the 24 clinics that Planned Parenthood operates in Minnesota.

This past week’s legislation mirrors other recent efforts in Wisconsin and New Hampshire to keep Planned Parenthood from receiving fund from state coffers. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker unveiled a budget proposal in early March which eliminates the Title V Maternal and Child Health Program. Title V is the source of roughly $1 million in funding for Planned Parenthood’s 27 Wisconsin clinics, according to the Huffington Post.

The proposed budget is currently stalled by tense debate over its radical overhaul of state finances, including cuts in education, and health-care and pension plans for public employees.

Legislative efforts in New Hampshire have also come to a standstill, after a bill specifically targeting Planned Parenthood was introduced in early February. HB 228 would, like the North Carolina and Indiana legislation, prohibit the state from entering into a contract with Planned Parenthood; it is currently retained in committee in the House.

Planned Parenthood stands to lose approximately $800,000 if the New Hampshire legislation is passed.

In a historic vote Friday afternoon, the US House voted to strike all federal funding for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Every year the abortion giant receives hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding.

The congressional body voted 240-185 in favor of the amendment, introduced by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), to the 2011 Federal Spending Bill.

Immediately after the vote Rep. Pence released a statement saying: “This afternoon’s vote is a victory for taxpayers and a victory for life. By banning federal funding to Planned Parenthood, Congress has taken a stand for millions of Americans who believe their tax dollars should not be used to subsidize the largest abortion provider in America.

“I commend my colleagues in both parties for taking a stand for taxpayers and a stand for life.”

The amendment will now go before the Senate.

The vote came after a heated debate in the House. It also comes in the wake of an explosive series of videos released over the last two weeks by the pro-life organization Live Action, which showed Planned Parenthood staff repeatedly willing to aid and abet the trafficking of underage “sex workers” by offering advice to an undercover investigator posing as a “pimp” on how to obtain secret abortions, contraception, and STD tests.

I’m sure the House Clerk has had his hands full all week, with the nearly 600 amendments filed and the many that were voted on during the fiscal 2011 spending debate. As a result, his website has been rather slow to update. At this point, though, we have all the votes on the spending bill, and there are two I’d like to point out right away. I’ll look at the final vote in a subsequent post, but here is the first one, yesterday’s Pence Amendment, by which the House voted rather convincingly to stop $363 million in subsidies for the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, and its many affiliates nationwide.

Even if you’re not a social conservative, funding for Planned Parenthood as a fiscal and a campaign finance issue. Currently, taxpayers are effectively subsidizing the Democratic Party. Planned Parenthood is a charity with plenty of donors. There’s no reason why taxpayers should have to support their favorite charity so that they can give more of their money to Democrats.

Take, for example, Planned Parenthood of Greater Indiana. Its IRS 990 form for 2009 reports that this affiliate had $10.6 million in revenue from patient services (including $1.2 million from Medicaid — an entitlement not covered by this spending bill). It raised $2 million and then took in $3 million in government grants. On the other side of the ledger, the group reports providing $14.6 million in services. With additional efforts to raise money and a bit of budgeting, they could probably operate at the same pace without the special handouts. (Their medical director made about $300,000 in 2009 — if he believes very strongly in the cause, perhaps he can settle for a bit less.)

If abortion were really supported by the majority of the American people, then surely the people who support abortion would be able to dig deep into their own wallets and just give Planned Parenthood all the money it needs to keep killing helpless babies. But I don’t think they are going to do that. And since they are not going to do that, Planned Parenthood will probably have to raise their prices for abortions. And as long as Obamacare doesn’t fund those abortions, then a lot more people are going to have to pay more for abortions. And since a lot more people don’t want to spend that money on abortions, a lot more people are going to stop treating sex as a recreational activity and behave more responsibly. Responsible behavior is what happens when people have to face the consequences of their own decisions.

I’m a fiscal conservative and a social conservative, and I don’t want my tax money going to kill innocent babies. I worked for that money and it’s mine – I earned it. I have to work weekends without pay just to keep my job. If all of these left-wing liberals are so comfortable with their jobs and salaries that they have extra money to spend on baby-killing, then let them give their money to Planned Parenthood. My money is for providing for my (future) babies, and paying for their graduate degrees. If I have to pay for other people’s plans to kill babies, then I can’t pay for my plan to raise them.

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the industrious out of it. You don’t multiply wealth by dividing it. Government cannot give anything to anybody that it doesn’t first take from somebody else. Whenever somebody receives something without working for it, somebody else has to work for it without receiving. The worst thing that can happen to a nation is for half of the people to get the idea they don’t have to work because somebody else will work for them, and the other half to get the idea that it does no good to work because they don’t get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.”

- Adrian Rogers, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention

And a quote from Michael Medved:

The only real alternative to government as a source of assistance, authority and a functioning civil society remains the “little platoons” described by Edmund Burke — families and communities shaped by attitudes that count as both economically and culturally conservative.

Abortion will be severely restricted abortion providers realize that there is no money to be made by killing innocent people. That’s why we need to stop paying them our money.